(1914-1980)
Gillette Elvgren was a
commercial artist known, more than anything else, for his
pin-up girls, most of which were produced for the calendar company
Brown & Bigelow. He also produced paintings of men and families, in addition to his much sought after pin-ups, for companies like
Coca-Cola,
Napa Auto Parts, and
Sylvania. Besides being a talented
painter, he was a skilled
photographer.
Elvgren's prolific career began in 1933, when he began attending the
American Academy of Art in Chicago, and lasted approximately 40 years, during which he produced around 500 paintings. He became an
overnight success at the age of 22, when he painted the
Dionne Quintuplets for two Brown & Bigelow calendars.
Though Elvgren painted a few
glamour girls and a few nudes, the majority of his pin-up paintings showed women getting their skirts caught or blown up, or
flashing their unseen audience while crossing their legs. The girls in his paintings were nothing approaching
femme fatales - they were
girls next door, young housewives, students, and sometimes sailors. All of them shared a fresh face, glowing cheeks, a sincere smile, bright eyes.
While Elvgren painted their costumes and the other parts of the composition in the foreground with near-photorealistic detail, he often left the details of their features to the imagination. Most of his paintings show women whose legs and arms are no more defined than a
Barbie doll's. They have no obvious lower eyelids, often the same nose, often the same eyebrows. Thus, his subjects appear a little
out of focus, as though viewed through a romantic and forgiving lense. The subtle traits of their bodies are left secret making them at once less pornographic and more accessible - they are obviously
ideals, not so much women to lust after as women to swoon over.
Elvgren was respected by his peers, other
working artists, throughout most of his career. They saw not only the quality in his finished products, but the time and effort he devoted to continually improving. It is
relatively recently that Elvgren, and other pin-up and commercial artists, are gaining deserved recognition as
fine artists.